Oh, it has been a great week.
After the Christmas festivities (more on those soon), we made plans for yesterday to be Potica Day at my parents' house. It has become a tradition in our family to make potica (basically poh-TEE-tsah), a Slovenian bread with a honey-walnut-butter filling, sometime around Christmas. My dad had to leave for a work trip, but my mom, sister, sister's boyfriend, brother, Josh and I tackled the project. My mom prepared the dough, and we took turns kneading our way through the batches.
(Wish was never too far away.)
We rolled out the dough and spread a layer of filling, which my mom had prepared in advance, then rolled it up carefully.
Then you can make a spiral with the dough, or a loaf, or a circle, or whatever. Sometimes our first initials end up on the pan. We made a lot of spirals last night. I tried a circle and it ended up looking like a smushed U. It was not my finest effort. It still tastes good, though!
The first potica day in the new house's kitchen!
As my mom was finishing the last batch of potica dough, a movement formed in the kitchen to make another batch of dough for homemade pizza. I don't know who started the idea, but it caught on quickly. Credit my brother, though, with being pizza captain last night. He took charge of the project and made it happen. We planned out two pizzas - one with pesto, shrimp, tomatoes and mozzarella and one with tomato sauce, peppers, olives, onions, spinach and more cheese.
Mom switched gears and whipped up a batch of pizza dough, and Brother and Josh prepared it for baking.
Then we all helped with the toppings. Wish is strategically under my mom and sister's hands.
The pizza was marvelous, and it was a great evening to wrap up the first Christmas at my parents' new house. Pizza and Potica is a new tradition we'll definitely revisit next year.
